


goddess of life and death

by thosch3i



Series: aphyuriweek2019 [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, F/F, Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 16:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosch3i/pseuds/thosch3i
Summary: Sofia,  a minor goddess of nature, sneaks into the Underworld and makes a new friend. (The myth of Hades and Persephone, but rewritten...a lot.)For aphyuriweek2019, day 2 prompt: mythology





	goddess of life and death

Sofia had always thought entrances to the Underworld from the realm of the living would be more carefully guarded, perhaps with fearsome skeletal warriors, decaying feral corpses, three-headed hellhounds, furious clawed harpies, the like.

But as she stands outside the unassuming abandoned hut in the middle of a forest, she stands alone.

The hut is in the process of being swallowed up by the earth itself—dark, thick vines curl up from the ground and ensnare the small building in its inescapable grasp, mossy growths spotting the worn stone bricks, and it looks to be a strong gust of wind away from collapsing in on itself entirely.

With a click of Sofia’s tongue and a wave of her hand, the vines lighten back to a fresh, verdant green, and unclasp their death grip on the hut, retreating slowly back to the ground. As she walks towards the hut entrance, small, vibrant wildflowers pop up on the ground behind her, creating a lively, colorful path, a stark contrast to the deteriorating hut.

There’s no door or semblance of one at the opening, and Sofia hums absently to herself as she pushes her way inside. A faint thrill of anxiety sparks through her chest, but it’s easily dismissed under the weight of excitement at possibly making a new friend. Sofia closes her eyes and takes a deep breath when she stands in the center of the hut, wrinkling her nose slightly at the scent of decay and mourning incense emanating from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. With her senses, she reaches out and  _ tugs _ at the space in front of her, power rushing like streamwater just beneath her skin. In an instant, the odour of death magnifies, and a bone-chilling freeze seeps into her bones. She shakes it off and steps forward.

When Sofia opens her eyes again, she is bathed in darkness. She blinks, and her vision rapidly adjusts. She stands at the precipice of a cliff, pitch-black jagged rock jutting out from all angles around her. There is no sky above when she looks up, only musty darkness crawling up into nothingness, a seemingly endless space that yet gives off a claustrophobic feeling. On either side of the cliff, she can see nothing. The drop looks as endless as the ceiling above, and when she kicks a stray rock over the edge, she stands and listens for more than a minute in silence, fidgeting impatiently. The rock never hits any sort of ground.

The Palace has to be somewhere around here, Sofia figures, and the newly anointed Goddess of the Dead somewhere inside. As a minor nature goddess herself, the realm of spirits and demons is hardly her forte, but she can’t help but think it must be awfully lonely down here, with nothing but the ear-splitting caterwauls of the damned spirits and the cloying adulations of the ghostly sycophants to keep her company.

Perhaps the Fates hold her favor today, because Sofia hardly has to wander for a few minutes until she spots the rustic, high towers of the Palace, somehow darker than the void of the Underworld, gleaming menacingly from above. Sofia belatedly realizes she’d been absently growing colorful flowers and leafy foliage as she’d walked, and the path to the Palace of the Dead is now dotted with completely out of place...life.

Sofia doesn’t feel like removing them, so she waltzes into the Palace. There are finally guards here, and they stare at her with confused suspicion, but none make a move to stop her. Likely they can sense her power and choose to believe she’s here with the invite of the Goddess of the Dead. This is a completely false assumption, but Sofia isn’t about to correct them.

Her grandmother and twin sister would both be throwing mighty fits if they knew Sofia was down here, she thinks absently as she strides right to the throne room without a single falter in her step. But Sofia’s all grown up now, she has the right to make decisions for herself. And if she wants to drop down to the Underworld to befriend the new Queen, she can and she will. With that determined thought in mind, she pushes open the colossal, elegant doors to the throne room and smiles her biggest smile, as if the brightness of her expression will light the dreary Underworld. “Hello! I’m Sofia!”

At the opposite end of the shockingly sparse, dark throne room, at the end of a lengthy blood-red carpet decorated with opulent golden lace, sits a woman on a throne. The throne itself is ornate and all-encompassing, somehow managing to be blacker than the Palace itself, so dark that upon gazing at it Sofia distantly thinks that all color is being sucked out of the Underworld into the void of the throne.

The woman sitting on the throne, on the other hand…

Sofia is stunned into silence the moment she lays eyes on her. Flinty blue eyes like ice chips stare back at her from across the room, and Sofia finds herself drifting closer, wordless. When she stands before the new Queen of the Underworld, her first coherent thought is actually,  _ she’s stunning? _ Intense gaze notwithstanding, the sharp contours of her face highlight a devastating, otherworldly (even for their kind) beauty, long blonde locks framing her sharp features, pale lips pursed together in a sort of confused, mild annoyance. She is swathed in black cloak that flickers in and out of existence at the edges, as if made of shadows itself. Her hands, bone-white like the rest of her skin, rest on the edges of the throne, and her fingers curl slightly as Sofia wanders close, but she otherwise makes no movement.

“Ah, how are you?” Sofia finally remembers the manners her grandmother had instilled into her, and her beaming smile returns to her face. “My name is Sofia, Goddess of Vegetation...mostly grain and that sort of stuff, but I like all nature. You probably know my grandmother. It’s rather dreary and empty down here, isn’t it? I grew some flowers on my way here, hope you don’t mind!”

The other goddess remains silent, staring blankly at Sofia as if she’s a darkness-induced hallucination who will disappear eventually.

“Aw, don’t you know how to greet a guest?” Sofia scolds gently, stepping up the glimmering void-black steps to stand face to face with the now evidently startled woman. “You could at least give me your name,” she coaxes.

A long, long silence ensues, until Sofia is starting to wonder if maybe there’s a reason the Queen of the Dead doesn’t have friends, but that doesn’t make sense,  _ everyone _ needs friends. Finally, a response: “Monika.”

Sofia didn’t think her smile could get any wider, but having finally enticed a name out of the pretty goddess, she’s more than ecstatic. “Monika! Hello, do you not often get visitors? Your hospitality is a little lackluster.”

Monika stares back at her, a dubious crease in her forehead, like ‘who dares speak so casually to the Queen of the Underworld?’, but Sofia ignores it and barrels on with all of her usual friendly tactlessness. “But it’s okay! If I’m your first, I’ll be sure to make sure you never forget me!” Sofia finishes with a cheerful wink and then realizes, belatedly, that her words had inadvertently sounded a bit too much like a come on. It’s worth the breach of etiquette, however, to see a slow flush creep up Monika’s porcelain skin, finally adding a splash of color to her monochromatic world.

“...Why are you even here.” It’s not phrased like a question, and Monika’s voice is stiff and flat as she levels a resigned half-glare at Sofia.

“Is that any way to talk to your guest?” Sofia deflates a little, but she didn’t come all the way down here to be turned away on the spot. “Can’t you at least show me around?” She presses her hands together in a pleading gesture, eyes wide and innocent. “Please?”

“I…” Monika is floundering now, blinking rapidly. “I have work to do.”

Sofia puts her hands on her hips, pouting. “Didn’t look like you were doing much of anything when I just walked in,” she protests sulkily.

“I was—fine.” Monika stands up. “I’ll show you the gardens, and then you’ll leave.”

Sofia is startled, almost not quite understanding what’s happening. She’d been expecting the Queen of the Dead to take more cajoling in order to convince, but her plan seems to have succeeded wonderfully. She resists the urge to clap her hands together and whoop gleefully, because that would be rude, and her grandma did teach her  _ some _ manners, after all. “Let’s go!”

As Monika leads Sofia to the gardens, she isn’t sure what to expect. The rest of the Underworld had been so dreary, dark, and lifeless, as one would expect from the realm of the dead. Perhaps the Underworld’s idea of a garden is wilted forest of ominous, blackened foliage. If that’s what’s she’s faced with, Sofia will have to smile and bear through it.

“We’re here.”

Monika’s voice tugs Sofia from her rampant imagination, and she finds herself tugged under a bone-white arch.

Contrary to Sofia’s fear, the garden is not a wasteland.

In fact, as Sofia steps through the entrance, she’s greeted by a worn dirt path into a dark, thick forest flanked by white lilies. Bulbous hyacinths in pinks and purples and blues bob lightly in the gentle breeze wafting from somewhere unknown beyond the lilies. Pink carnations, yellow roses, vibrant chrysanthemums dot the field in an almost haphazard manner, creating a chaotic yet somehow holistic pattern.

“There’s more,” Monika intones, taking Sofia by the elbow and gently pulling her along the worn path. Worn by who, Sofia wonders—who in the Underworld would put effort into keeping something alive? Monika herself?

The two women walk along the path in silence, passing through the dark forest. There’s no natural light down here, but brightness emits from above anyhow—not the golden caress of the sun’s rays, nor the cooling touch of moonlight, but a freezing, sterile white light that somehow encourages these plants to grow nonetheless. The trees tower above them, dark mossy green, waving silently in the nonexistent breeze. There is simultaneously life and no life in them—no nymph finds their residence in these trees of the Underworld, yet Sofia feels the thrum of some sort of twisted energy inside them, undoubtedly  _ alive _ and responding to her presence. Faint light flickers through dark canopies, scattering flecks of white like dainty stars down on the path and across Monika’s face.

Sofia observes the Goddess of the Dead as they walk together. Spots of white light illuminate her pallid skin, so she glows—not with life, but with death. Her void-black robes seem to consume all light that hits them, similar to her throne earlier, so that trying to look at them for too long almost gives Sofia a headache.

They pass through the thick of the forest and enter a clearing. At the center, a delicate, pure white willow tree weeps over a crystal clear pond. The trodden dirt path to the pond is lined with black roses. The path splits into smaller tracks, winding around the clearing in an orderly fashion, each path lined with a colorful assortment of flowers and foliage, but all containing also a considerable collection of ghost-white and pitch-black varieties not seen aboveground, from white sunflowers to black azaleas.

It’s almost hauntingly beautiful, like Monika herself.

Sofia drifts towards the pond in the center, and settles down on a flat rock near the edge. She kicks her feet in the clear, icy cold pond, the ends of her glittering golden gown just barely catching the surface of the water, and she absently grows bright red poppies on the grass beneath her with one hand. After a few minutes of silence, Monika rests beside her, watching. The silence is broken only by the faint splashes of water, until Sofia eventually tires of that and brings her legs back up to sit cross-legged on the boulder.

“Do you visit this place a lot?” Sofia is the first to break the silence yet again, her voice ringing loud and clear in the unnatural quiet of the Underworld’s garden.

“Sometimes,” Monika admits after a brief pause. Her voice is clearer here, soft and lilting. “It’s…nice here. No one else would take care of this place if not for me.” She falls silent again, seemingly not used to speaking much.

The two women pass time in the garden for gods know how long, Sofia slowly coaxing longer and longer conversation out of the sullen and reserved Queen. She learns that Monika has an intense fondness for the hellhounds, and she manages to excitedly convince Monika to let her meet them later. She learns that Monika had an older sister, once, but she clams up when Sofia probes on the topic, and so she lets it go. She learns that being the ruler of the Underworld comes with a lot of responsibilities, and Monika finds that losing herself in her work is calming.

(“You weren’t working when I got there,” Sofia accuses.

“You caught me in a rare moment of downtime,” Monika shoots right back.)

Sofia also learns that Monika’s hobby is, of all things,  _ cooking. _

(“I can get herbs and spices from above easily, and there’s no shortage of fire for roasting meat,” Monika protests when Sofia levels a dubious look at her.

“In that case, you have to come above and cook for me one day,” Sofia declares, grinning.

Monika averts her gaze. “Perhaps,” she demurs.)

Most importantly, Sofia learns that Monika  _ can _ open up a little and have a friendly conversation, and her heart sings with the triumph. Sofia’s grandmother and all the other gods above treat Sofia like a child still, but Monika doesn’t once look down on her, talking like they’re equals.

In return, Sofia tells Monika about her twin sister, a foul-mouthed, hotheaded spitfire of a goddess, constantly railing on Sofia for being too friendly with others.

(“But I’m glad I’m ‘too friendly’, since I got to meet you!” Sofia adds.

Monika simply huffs in exasperation, ducks her head, and says nothing, but Sofia thinks she glimpses a hint of red dusting the Queen’s cheeks, so Sofia counts it as a win.)

Sofia talks about her grandmother, about her favorite flowers, about her cats, about gossip, about painting, about her own cooking prowess, about any topics she can think about until her throat is almost hoarse from speaking. Monika follows each sentence Sofia says with her full attention, making vague noises of agreement or discontent when the story calls for it, occasionally rolling her eyes and scolding Sofia for making terrible life choices.

(“I only tried to steal from Goddess of Wisdom because I was  _ bored _ ,” Sofia protests.

“How have you not been kicked from the Heavens?” Monika asks wearily.)

Until, finally, they fall silent again. This time, there’s no awkwardness, no tense air between them. They sit, bathed in the ethereal glow of Underworld light, listening to nothing but the calm beating of their own hearts.

After a longer stretch of time, Sofia finally slides off the boulder they sit on, intending to wander the garden a bit more, when she catches a whiff of a familiar fruit. A lone pomegranate tree stands to her left, just off one of the trodden paths. She leans over a row of navy blue and royal purple roses, and she plucks a fruit from the tree, peering curiously at it. The pomegranate looks no different from the ones she’s used to. Before she can even think of peeling it, however, a deceptively gentle-looking hand reaches out and grasps her wrist with a startling strength. “Don’t.”

Sofia startles, but doesn’t drop the fruit. She blinks up at Monika, confused by the sudden severe, cold look in her eyes, a stark contrast to the almost warmth she’d seen earlier. “What?”

Monika frowns, gaze boring into Sofia’s soul. “Don’t you know? If you eat the food of the Underworld, you can’t leave.”

“Oh.” Sofia ponders this for several long moments, and Monika releases her death grip on Sofia’s wrist. “What if I only ate half the pomegranate?”

“You would...only be stuck here for half of your life?” But why would you want to do that, is unvoiced.

Would it really be so bad? The garden is lovely, and Monika seems so…lonely. Sofia’s heart aches; it’s not fair for a woman as powerful and as beautiful as Monika to be all by herself down here. But Monika doesn’t seem like the type to accept friendship readily given—her own heart might be closed off, not ready to open up to anyone willing to be there for her. Even with their lengthy conversation, Monika had only offered the barest bread crumbs of knowledge about herself, and she’d seemed content to let Sofia do most of the talking.

But Sofia knows, No matter how frigid someone appears on the surface, gods, humans, even spirits long for company deep down, at some point in their lives. Sofia also knows that though she had wormed her way into the Underworld this time by pure luck, she is under no illusion that the portal she entered through won’t be closed the instant she returns to the land of the living.

Sofia makes friends wherever she goes, and she will never abandon a desolate soul.

Mind made up, Sofia starts peeling the pomegranate.

“What are you doing?” Monika demands, reaching out to wrench the fruit away from Sofia’s hands, but this time Sofia sees the lunge coming, and she ducks away.

“I like you,” Sofia states bluntly. The honest confession throws Monika off, and she stares, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed with disgruntled confusion.

“Why?” Monika demands, and the question is so genuine that Sofia’s heart breaks a little.

“Because,” Sofia says, her voice deceptively calm, “you overwork yourself here in the dark, all alone, and you don’t sound like you have anyone to watch after you. You’re a god, you’re not heartless, you like dogs, you have hobbies, you miss your sister-” Monika flinches, but Sofia doesn’t let her voice waver as she continues- “you finally looked  _ alive _ back there, when we were talking, and I want to get to know you better.” Sofia sticks her chin out, finished.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Monika snaps, eyes flashing with irritation, “I don’t need your misplaced pity—”   
  
“I’m not offering my pity,” Sofia cuts her off, “I’m offering my friendship.” And perhaps more, later, when Monika is more at ease with her. “But,” she adds, “if you hate me, I can’t change your mind. You can tell me to scram, banish me back to the surface if you like, but unless you really,  _ really _ detest me and can’t imagine ever getting along with me, then I want to stay; at least allow me the dignity to make that choice.”

Monika is at a loss for words. After a short, stunned silence, her gaze turns cold, indiscernible, and she says, “If you want to chain yourself to darkness for half of eternity, then fine, that’s your choice. I won’t bother with you.”

Sofia hears the barely there quaver in Monika’s voice, and she thinks of their conversation at the pond earlier, recalling the almost gentle way Monika spoke of her dogs, the faint inklings of embarrassment written in her expression at admitting her hobby of cooking, the hardly appreciable hint of longing in her tone as she spoke of her sister…Sofia steadies her heart, and makes her decision. She plucks six pomegranate seeds from the fruit, and throws them all in her mouth at once. She chews and swallows them all.

“You—!” Monika’s shocked voice comes a second before she lunges at Sofia once again. This time, Sofia doesn’t duck out of the way, and Monika grasps Sofia’s chin with one hand, the other coming to rest on her bare shoulder. Sofia shivers imperceptibly; Monika’s fingers are icy to the touch, but rapidly warm against Sofia’s skin.

Sofia licks her lips, chasing the taste of pomegranate juice and drawing Monika’s attention to her mouth. This close, every exquisite detail of the Queen’s face is visible, from her flawless skin, to the high, sharp contours of her face, her wide, sky-blue eyes, delicate eyelashes, the wispy strands of blonde hair that fall into her face. Sofia swallows, tries to keep the heat out of her voice, but her next words come out breathy regardless. “What, did you want some?”

Monika’s fingers are a butterfly wing’s width away from brushing Sofia’s lips, and she finally seems to snap to her senses, recoiling. Sofia mourns the cool touch the instant Monika pulls away, suddenly feeling overheated. “I cannot  _ believe _ you,” Monika growls, conflicting emotions warring for control of her overall expression. Indignance, fury, shock, bewilderment, and the briefest flash of hope and wonder all flit across her face in seconds, before she finally settles on a reluctant resignation. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

Sofia’s heart is pounding, and she doesn’t think she’s been this excited before in her long, long life. She steps closer, and then finally reaches out and tugs Monika by the arm, gently. The dark cloak is cool under her fingers, and shadows curl around the edges of Sofia’s grasp, almost as if the clothing itself is trying to hold her hand. “Monika.”

The Queen of the Underworld meets her gaze.

“I like you; don’t run away from me,” Sofia says softly.

Monika visibly swallows, blinking rapidly, but she allows herself to be led back to the boulder next to the pond. The two women sit down, silently. There’s no turning back now, but Sofia wouldn’t want to, anyway. She casts a glance at Monika, who is staring back at her, awe mixing with confusion in her eyes. When Sofia meets her gaze, Monika quickly turns her head away, fixing her gaze intently on the smooth, clear surface of the pond instead. If Sofia isn’t mistaken, a faint flush is starting to climb up the pale column of Monika’s throat.

  
Sofia smiles to herself.  _ Now this _ , she thinks,  _ is the start of something beautiful. _

**Author's Note:**

> at this point i gave up writing for the rest of the week i'm sorry LOL.
> 
> Come say hi to me on [Tumblr](https://thosch3i.tumblr.com/) or on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thosch3i)!


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